How do other startups handle NYC 'Summer Fridays?' | Hacker News Reader

How do other startups handle NYC 'Summer Fridays?'

8 pointsdanielodio9 comments

I've been hearing that some(many?) companies in NYC (mostly agency & media, it seems) have 'Summer Fridays' policies where they give Friday afternoons off to their employees.

As a west coast startup guy I don't totally get this, and wanted to know how startups in NYC handle it.

Specifically I'd love to get feedback from anyone who:

- Has a startup w/ offices in both SF & NYC. Do you do it for NYC employees? For all employees?

- Has a startup that's not doing this in NYC (and whether it causes any friction w/ your employees)

It seems a bit crazy to me to do it, esp. for a startup that's gunning hard, but I'm sure it's an NYC cultural thing. Just trying to understand the culture and how others handle it.

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I've worked at a few companies including a several startups and my current company is the only place where summer fridays are a thing. Even then, last year, the tech department was usually the last to leave. Keep in mind that at some companies, summer fridays just means that you can dress down and wear shorts.

The companies that do summer fridays are companies where developers are working ~40 hour work weeks. These companies are usually places where they expect employees to last several years and often are profitable.

Why do companies do summer fridays? In the northeast, you typically have about 2-3 months where the weather is nice enough to go to the beach. If you've got kids, this is their summer vacation. Plus in many metro areas there are a lot of concerts and events going on during the summer. It's a nice way of letting your people enjoy their lives instead of just living for work.

RE: "Why do companies do summer fridays? In the northeast, you typically have about 2-3 months where the weather is nice enough to go to the beach."

Yeah so this is exactly why I'm wrestling with it. I totally get that it's an opportunity to enjoy the weather in the NE, and the culture is to hit the Hamptons or Fire Island etc., and that a lot of other colleagues are out there too. But another key part of what you said is "[These companies] often are profitable." So I'm super curious to know what high-growth, private, not-yet-profitable startups in NYC do.

I guess one way to think about it is: In SF many of us take 3-5 days off, at once, for Burning Man. In NYC they space it out over summer Friday afternoons.

Update: Lots of opinions here. I posted this question to a few startup FB groups. Here are some of the answers I got from founder CEOs in those groups:

- CEO of an NYC startup: "We certainly don't have a summer Friday policy, but I'd say in general I don't love Friday afternoons. People definitely leave pretty early. We had to move our meetings back to the afternoons." [I assume he's saying they did that to keep employees from leaving]

- European startup founder: "Same thing at publishing companies in London, more or less all year long. I'm not sure why there's those policies in the media space. I'm not planning on setting up anything like that… we're not a billion dollar company yet"

- Startup founder: "Yeah if you do summer Fridays are for banks, big cos, you know the place where people take this for granted... do not recruit people who want this."

- Startup founder: "As an east coast company we don't do that, but there certainly is an expectation to take more vacations and have more flexibility during the summer months. The main and obvious difference here versus the west coast is that you guys have nice weather year round"

- Startup CTO: "[At my last large media company gig we] had Summer Fridays but you'd visit the office at 5pm on Fridays and we'd usually all be there. To me, it's like the startups that have no vacation policy ("if you want to go, go"). Trust your employees. If you hired right, they'll appreciate the gesture but only take you up on it when it makes sense. That said, when people do use it, I think the 'Summer Fridays' don't guarantee there are post-work events (people could get an early start on skipping town)."

- Startup accelerator founder: "This is not some new phenomenon; This has been going on with startups for many years - even pre dotcom. Work always happens at these post work events and people take time to recharge - if you hired right, you need not worry, as people with shit to do stay and do it, and others get more efficient, if even for a short while. It is also a great time to recruit folks and I know I have seen a lot of folks hiring recently."

If your company depends on controlling people's hours when they'd rather actually just leave, other more disastrous interpersonal issues are in play.

I often get more work done walking around the park and thinking about better approaches to a problem than I do by sitting and trying to grind on a problem incessantly for hours.

If you can't trust your employees to do the right thing, you have captive slaves, not useful creative problem solvers.

Easy solution used by the NYC startup I work at:

Schedule a company standup meeting at 4:30 or so. Everyone cracks open a beer to enjoy while presenting what they have been working on for the past week. The standup lasts 30 mins or so, after which those who want to leave take off, and those that are going to continue working usually grab another beer and head back to the computer.

Most of the larger media agencies offer some number of Fridays to be used flexibly as days off during the summer. It's never all Fridays, and the concession is that it never interfere with work or deliverables. I don't know of any startups that offer this.

Thanks for the 411, Eric. Esp helpful re: "I don't know of any startups that offer this"

It's not fridays off in my experience. It's you can work your friday afternoon hours during the rest of the week. 4 days for 9 hours and 1 day for 4. Alternatively, if you get your work done, its the same as flex time.

I'm not a startup employee, but I can tell you that there are a lot of offices in NYC that are 1/3 to 1/2 empty on Fridays in the summer.

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